


Seven for a Secret

by Magpietrove4



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29469105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpietrove4/pseuds/Magpietrove4
Summary: “One for sorrow,Two for joy,Three for a girl,Four for a boy,Five for silver,Six for gold,Seven for a secret never to be told.”—Nursery rhyme about magpies
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. 1. In which Sasha Falls Into Many Things

**Author's Note:**

> “One for sorrow,  
> Two for joy,  
> Three for a girl,  
> Four for a boy,  
> Five for silver,  
> Six for gold,  
> Seven for a secret never to be told.”
> 
> —Nursery rhyme about magpies

Sasha, walking in the thin sunlight of a Tuesday afternoon, bumped into a trash can on Pickwick Street. Then she ran into the corner of a bus stop, and without further ado, tripped off of the curb. This was because she was in love, and as everyone who has read anything knows, alas, Love is blind.

  
Sasha was not prepared for this effect. She hadn’t known when she left her room earlier that she would fall in love and have to try to find her way home without her mental or sensory faculties, so she hadn’t thought to bring any special provisions. If she had, she might have brought an umbrella for instance (though why I’ve no idea). Or perhaps a stick to prop herself up upon.

  
It was certainly convenient that she had fallen near a bus stop at least—she had just enough change to let her ride the bus home and spare a traffic accident. Now if she could just remember where home was?

  
One absolutely cannot blame Sasha for never getting around to recalling that. We must not any of us think ourselves superior to the transfixing qualities of bus windows and an enchantment upon the world that makes one’s internal landscape something marvelous in a way it wasn’t before. But because of this it was some hours before Sasha was able to catch on to the fact that, while she still wasn’t quite sure where home was, it was certainly not this way. That gives us a few moments to catch up on what had set off this series of serendipitous events.

  
Sasha had set off that morning unsuspectingly enough; but had quickly had quickly begun to suspect that this would be a rather miserable day. What clued her in was the somewhat disheartening criticism (read, ‘unnecessarily vicious’, but Sasha would never believe so) she received on a piece of art she had intended as a gift, lost, and that had turned up as an (accidentally) submitted assignment; the classmate that had bumped into her and knocked all her paints to the floor right by the door to her school; and the impish wind that caught her favorite light colored broad brimmed hat as she stooped to pick them up and danced it rottenly out toward the busy street that had recently been rained upon and was consequently still muddy.

From these events, Sasha concluded it was going to be One of Those Days, as she waited unhappily and with great trepidation to see whether her beloved hat would be dropped squarely in a mud puddle or run over by a truck.  
But in a move calculated to prove all grandmothers right when they wag their heads and say serenely, “you never know,” it was neither. Instead it was snatched from the wind’s clutches not five feet from her, by a certain tall, amber eyed, somewhat-tousled-black-haired class mate, whose name was Shiro.

  
“Oh no, what happened here?” he said pleasantly, ambling over to help her with the scattered paints too, as if he needed to do anything more. Shiro was always pleasant or ambling, except when he had fought the members of the campus Drama Club last semester. No one had ever figured out what exactly had set that off, but it had lent him the perfect spark of danger and mystery to keep him from coming off as bland.

  
“It’s nothing really,” Sasha stammered, not wanting to explain certain things about herself or place any blame on the classmate that had run into her (which, as subsequent events unfolded, proved to be a wise decision to avoid judgement of her own self).“Just an accident!”

  
Shiro handed her first her hat, then knelt to help gather up the paints, because his grandmother had raised him that way. Suddenly, Sasha’s day was looking unaccountably brighter, as she plopped her beloved hat firmly on her head, and then Shiro handed her her paints and smiled at her—and that was when it had struck. Shiro proceeded to open the door for her and, noticing her full hands and rather confused expression, carried one of her paint sets up to the second level classroom door for her, but if he had left Sasha did not know it, because her mind hadn’t moved past the sight of him snatching her hat. The image had somehow become wrought with a curious significance.

(Shiro had, in fact, left, and gone about his own classes with good humor and exceedingly high scores all around, then gone home and kissed his grandmother’s forehead to procure lunch.)

The most treacherous part of being in Love is not knowing you are In It. (The second most, in case you are curious, is knowing you Are.) Sasha for her own part, to judge by her symptoms, was only half aware—of most things at this point—and thereby avoided both pitfalls for the moment. But she daydreamed all through the much-longer-than-intended bus ride about flowers and shimmering streets and herself a princess, with a foggy prince making an occasional appearance to save her hat, managing to look uncannily like Shiro.

But I regret to inform you Sasha was not a princess; rather, she was Lost. When the half portion of awareness still allotted to her alighted on this fact, she alighted off of it—the bus, that is. “Oh!” She exclaimed, looking around the country lane where she had been deposited, because really what else is there to say when one has had such a day and finds oneself in such a place?

Gradually, the haze she had been in began to recede—she felt her feet upon the ground again, and began to turn to another more practical kind of wonder, which was, wondering where exactly she was. The road was narrow here, made narrower by the hedge-like bushes growing along either side. No flowers bloomed on them, but their leaves were growing crisp and dropping off the tail end of summer as it passed by.

  
A long autumn-adjacent evening would be falling in a few hours—the goldening light slanting low to peep over the hedges promised it. The last few birds, procrastinating their winter flight and hopping happily homeward, paused, apparently on other pretenses such as worms, to catch a glimpse of this newcomer in her broad hat and too summery green blouse, and wonder if she might perhaps spare a few strands of her strawberry hair for them to pad their nests with.

Sasha, meanwhile, had spied a gate in the hedge—two actually, one before and one behind. She could—thank goodness—also see the gables of an occasional house protruding above the hedges as well. She wound up going to the gate behind her, as it was nearer home, if only by a few hundred feet. It was open, so she went through it without thinking, before coming to her senses and desperately hoping no one would mind. The house it led to was tall and white and vaguely Grecian—a great house as if out of an old story—a house one could paint—with a fountain and parkland to boot. And it had tall windows.

It was in one of those windows Sasha saw a girl—or rather behind one of them, I suppose I should say, for this girl had the distinct air of being shut in. She was looking down, bent over something, black curls falling into her face. She paused to push up her gold-rimmed glasses, and that was when she caught sight of Sasha, who suddenly realized she was most certainly trespassing and wanted to scatter in all eight directions at once, or else pretend she was only the mail carrier. The girl would certainly want to know what Sasha was doing, and Sasha herself also wanted to know that. She was half way between turning around and digging in her pockets for something that might excuse her appearance when she finally came to and shook herself.

“What am I doing? Oh!” She marched up to the window. The other girl slid it open, and Sasha prefaced whatever she was going to say with a little wave. “Um. . .sorry to bother you! I’m lost.” She held out her hand to shake, supposing that was what one did.

“I’m Isolde,” the other girl said, cooly and quietly, putting her pencil down and taking Sasha’s hand. She never smiled.  
“Oh!” Sasha said for the fourteenth time today. “Well—I’m not lost. I’m Sasha. I am lost though.” Trying again, she added, “Are you the Isolde from the Upper Levels? At Art School?”

The other girl was holding her pencil in both hands in her lap now, obscuring a delicately sketched landscape. If she had any thoughts about Sasha being there, Sasha couldn’t see them. But she said, “I suppose so,” and it was not unkindly. Only very reserved.

“I go there too,” Sasha hastened to explain. “I’ve seen your work displayed! Some of the professors in first year use it as an example. I haven’t seen you there before though, I don’t think?” She proffered tentatively. If it hadn’t been Quite a Day I doubt she would have said as much, but it had, and she was only now realizing she was talking to the equivalent of a campus ghost story. Everybody had heard of Isolde; but Sasha was trying and failing to remember a single person who had ever seen her.

“I . . .haven’t been well recently,” Isolde replied, and her voice sounded like she was a thousand miles away, or maybe a thousand years.

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” Sasha replied, dipping her head sincerely. “I hope you feel better soon!”

  
The smile Isolde gave her had the exact same effect as if she had burst into tears. It looked very much like the ending of Antigone. Sasha was taken aback.

There are moments in life where we come to resolutions so sudden and certain that we wonder if we come to them or they come to us. At the sight of that smile Sasha came to one of those moments. It dropped at her feet like a brick, and she knew immediately that she wanted one thing of the world and that was to see Isolde genuinely happy. It wasn’t pity—it was only the feeling that the world would never be happy in some way unless Isolde was.

Simply put, it was the blossoming of that investment in another’s joy called friendship. For the next few weeks Sasha found a significant portion of her remaining attention would be taken up in doing her best to find ways to be a friend to Isolde. But that thought made her realize she was running very low on time at the present, so she got back to the business at hand and asked for directions home; and Isolde gave them.

It was the first spark of curiosity Isolde had showed when she asked, “What are you doing so far from home?”  
“Well,” Sasha said, screwing up her memory in an attempt to rewind. “I kind of took the bus.” That was the only part of “how” she was sure of.

“Oh,” said Isolde in return. “Will you be able to get back?”

Sasha hadn’t figured that out yet. She shuffled her foot a bit while trying to, but then Isolde said instead, “Mr. Richter can take you. I’ll have him pull the car around.” When Sasha looked up to protest that she didn’t want to be a bother and she was sure she could make the walk back just fine since the bus seemed to have spent a deal of the time going around rather than away from town and she’d enjoy the afternoon air, Isolde had already vanished behind the half parted gauzy curtains, her pencil and sketch vacated on the window seat.

So it was in about fifteen minutes Sasha found herself rolling up to the door of her student apartment in a shining black Bentley driven by Isolde’s mustachioed and statuesque Butler, who never said a word, and she was left to wander upstairs nearly dizzy with the events of the day, wondering why it was that everything always happened so much and all at once. Luckily, she began to realize as she went that she was hungry, and nothing is so grounding as hunger.

Her gerbil, the cat who had not eaten the gerbil, and her bird Zephyr who had in turn spared the cat all stirred as she entered her room, and after greeting them cheerily and apologizing for her tardiness, she found she was hungry for nothing so much as toast, so she began to make herself some, humming the music to a daydream as she waited and was pulled back into that enchanted state of mind that had earlier descended upon her, to the tune of a fair maiden and a hero tentatively resembling Shiro. She was interrupted when the toaster oven dinged, and she set upon her toast with relish (of feeling not of pickles) and then began to clean up the scattered supplies she had brought home with her. As she cleaned she wondered about Isolde, and, coming across the much maligned lost-gift-accidentally-turned-assignment, she wondered if she ever could be a friend to Isolde after all; because it had reminded her of one terrible and insurmountable problem that stood in the way. For you see, Sasha was afflicted with a curse.


	2. 2. In Which the Curse and a Squirrel Do Their Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you ever see a lassie,  
> Go this way and that?”
> 
> —English folk rhyme

Sasha’s curse was of a peculiar sort.There was no telling where it had come from. To her knowledge no fairy had been slighted at her christening, nor had she stolen from any witches or insulted any mysterious old women, at least none that had ever cried “Fie upon you, be cursed!” and dashed her with newt’s tongue or magic dust. Neither was it easily attributable to natural causes—she was neither excessively ignorant, particularly unobservant, or spectacularly clumsy. Actually, when she was not in love she had a great eye for detail, and even if she did fall, it was rather gracefully. And yet somehow it always happened that her proclivity toward generosity was invariably foiled by what could only be described by the words: really rotten luck. Suppose for instance, one of the fellow students living in her building (of which there were a great many) appeared to be seized with the fatal aesthetic obsession which causes one to forget that any food except the wax pear in front of one was edible. And suppose further Sasha had watched for three days as they faded before her eyes while she made up her mind to bake them some bread. Why then, upon delivery she would discover that that particular student had developed a severe gluten allergy last week. If she attempted to help someone with their groceries, the milk would spring a leak and spill everywhere; and if she intended to give a painting to anyone as a birthday gift, it was promptly lost and turned up as an assignment which was declared not very good anyways.

What made it more difficult was the exactly two and a half times Sasha had actually, miraculously, not been foiled by the curse, and her attempted kindness had succeeded in doing what she meant it to. These occasions meant that Sasha could never afford to simply not attempt it, because she could never be sure when the other half miracle might show up.

To date, it hadn’t. But Sasha still had to go on, because four catastrophically failed attempts might simply be four closer to the missing half if not another whole success. It was the essential contradiction of her nature—both eager and utterly wary of doing others a good turn—eager for their sake’s, and wary also for their sake’s. Sasha couldn’t be sure if she really could do something friendly for Isolde, or if she would accidentally set her house on fire.

It took her all day to reason her way through it. In photography she had decided that if she stayed away from anything combustible it _might_ be safe to at least try. During art history she mustered enough courage to decide she would. Free period was spent attempting to sort through various precautions she should take while she endeavored to finish a bit of assigned reading, but the two activities were unfortunately rather incompatible, so she finished neither. By the end of her final class she had made up her mind to stop by the shop on the corner across the street from the school. She would find Isolde some kind of (non-flammable) gift to present as a thank you for the directions and the car ride.

Accordingly, Sasha made her way across the cobblestone street and ducked into the shelter of the shop. A bell rang chirpily overhead, announcing her entrance to no one in particular, and disturbing the sleep of a fat and wrinkly dog named Frank, who merely rolled over to snore on his other side. He knew Sasha personally, and was sure enough of her loyalty to not bother with begging, because she was one of his best procurers of treats, unfailingly depositing her spare coins in the jar on the counter marked “Frank Fund” (which Sasha herself had been the one to set up upon one occasion).

The cashier at the front counter did not look at her, his eyes being otherwise engaged in shifting from his phone screen to the two customers already in the store, whom he was apparently expecting to be done soon. And really who else could you expect one of those customers to be but Shiro, because isn’t that just the way?

Upon discovering this, Sasha was seized with a strange and pervasive fear which she could not account for, but which I’m sure you can, having the advantage of perspective and your insides not having unexpectedly turned into frogs. Under the firm recommendation of Panic, Sasha dove behind a display of plants, which took pity on her and offered their greenery to conceal her. Shiro had not noticed, but her sudden movement had caught the more wary eye of the other customer—a tall, always-just-shy-of-being-well-dressed music student with a grey school beanie slipping off the back of a mane of hair (which was an admittance requirement for music students), by the name of Lysander, who spotted Sasha between the protesting green arms of the plants still trying to shield her from view. Sasha knew him by sight, which was because he usually accompanied the sight of Shiro. In fact, it was hard to distinguish Shiro’s best friend from his shadow—they seemed equally attached to him and one or the other was always trailing after him just behind his shoulder. But where Shiro was the very image of easy amicability, Lysander was stiff, generally had an air of not having slept any time within the last three weeks, and was suspected of having broken the library window two semesters ago. (Probably both of these things were nearly true; but if they were, they were often viewed outside of their proper context, which was that Lysander would have died, much less break a window, for Shiro, but only if Shiro never knew it). The only thing that kept him from being relegated to the role of black sheep on campus was that he was always impeccably polite, if it was in a stiff and unwilling kind of way. The rumor was that Shiro’s grandmother had gotten ahold of him (which certainly wasn’t out of the question, given that he was not very far to reach). Whatever the case, it was certainly not a _natural_ grace that he possessed, but a very deliberate one, rather like a perfectly imitated accent.

At any rate, he was moving toward Sasha, dark eyes narrowing and slightly frowning. Sasha sunk lower behind the protection of the greenery, then thought of the pretense of looking at the price of the plants on the lower shelf.

“Anything the matter,” he asked thinly, peering down over the greenery. Sasha was spared an answer, because on general principle whither his shadow went, Shiro went.

“Oh!” said Shiro’s smile, as his friend shoved his hands in his pockets and fell into place behind his shoulder. “Did you lose something?”

Sasha froze in her crouch, then looked gingerly up at him. “No, I don’t think so,” she said slowly. She wasn’t sure though because she seemed to have lost track of her feet and her head also did not seem entirely set on her shoulders anymore. She raised a hand as far as her hair. That was still there at least.

Shiro, thinking the motion was meant to right a non-existent hat and not be sure of an existent head, suggested, “Not your hat?” He shoved his hands into his pockets as he spoke to right the discrepancy in image between him and his shadow, although his shove was much more relaxed. Shiro had such an easy manner that he probably could have committed crimes and people would have thanked him (except maybe Lysander, who had such a manner that he would have been blamed).

“Oh, no I didn’t want to risk that today,” Sasha replied, and suddenly found all her limbs had come unstuck, propelling her upward smilingly, only, of course, to hit her head on a shelf. The plants, surprised by the movement, jumped, and one was sent tumbling to the floor. Its ceramic vase shattered, and Sasha’s whole heart fell with it—all to pieces. It was an occurrence she was growing used to, though, and unlike the vase, her heart rebounded almost immediately, because as the plant had struck the floor a thought had struck her with a strangely perverse hope that perhaps this was the effects of her curse, and if it was _only_ this, a broken vase is at any rate much better than accidental arson. Perhaps it would go better than she had thought!

Lysander, looking from the vase to Sasha’s odd, sweetly contemplative expression, thought she was mildly insane. Shiro couldn’t see her expression because he’d already gone to find a broom to help sweep up. Sasha knelt back down to attempt to salvage the plant, saying to herself thoughtfully, “poor thing” and then “It’ll be perfect,” which did nothing to convince Lysander he was wrong. He bent to pick up the pieces of crockery before she hurt herself at her new activity, which appeared to be something like recreating the scene of the man making a mountain out of his mashed potatoes from _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_. Really though she was working at gathering up what she could of the dirt in order to transport the plant—she had decided she would paint it a new vase and bring it to Isolde. It had a bud on it, and she had a green thumb (sometimes literally), and an intuition that told her Isolde would love to see it flower.

At this point, Shiro returned with the broom which the cashier had been more than happy to hand off to him, and swept up the dust. That was all that was left on the ground, since Lysander now had an arm full of smashed crockery and Sasha had a purse full of dirt with a plant growing from it. Seeing it, Shiro let out a hearty laugh.

Its effects were rather devastating to poor Sasha, who found herself desperately attempting to picture how she could paint it—it would certainly be her masterpiece—before she remembered “it” was a sound. If only she knew music. . .but she did not, and neither did Shiro, and the only musician in the room coughed very unprofessionally and turned on his heel to dump the remains of the pot unceremoniously in the nearest trash can and then eye the other two under the pretense of talking with the cashier.

“Are you taking that with you?” Shiro asked, nodding at the plant, amused.

“It’s—a gift,” Sasha said cautiously, and discreetly eyed the ceiling to make sure it wasn’t going to cave in. It didn’t, which further buoyed her optimism.

Shiro turned around to replace the broom. “Someone’s birthday?”

“No. Not that I know of. But I’ve only just met her so. . .oh no do you think it is?” she ended suddenly, worried about crashing a party or—worse yet—the possibility of candles.

“Is—what?” Shiro asked, amiably confused.

“Isolde’s birthday,” Sasha said, not actually to Shiro, but to herself—but Shiro answered very quickly anyways. There was something different in his tone—a new alacrity. It was something like what happens in kindergarten when the cornstarch mixed into water is squeezed and becomes solid. Generally, Shiro was a rather aimless person; but now he had some hint of direction about him. “Do you know Isolde?”

Sasha snapped back from the jail cell her rather nightmarish trail of thought had wound her up in to the much more vague golden haze that was the present. “What? Oh, Isolde? Yes—sort of. I’m going to I think.”

Shiro took this rather odd answer in stride, and his eyes sparkled with eagerness. “Good,” he said, with all the certainty of Moses. Sasha was rather shaken by this pronouncement, but at this point Lysander reappeared at Shiro’s elbow and his elbow appeared in Shiro’s ribs. He handed Shiro a bag.

“That’s all your grandmother asked for,” he said, and Shiro, rubbing his ribs cheerfully, nodded and said, “Oh, thanks,” while he riffled through the bag. Then he ran his free hand through his hair and said, “I think doing something for Isolde is a great idea. Well, it was good to see you,” and ambled away. Lysander followed, leaving Sasha drifting in their wake toward the counter, too distracted to notice the clinking of the change that fell into the Frank Fund (though Frank was not) and the contented sigh that came from him upon receiving a friendly pat, or Shiro calling to his friend that they’d better hurry up. She haphazardly tried to dig some money out of her purse, came up with a handful of dirt, and began to try her pockets instead, only to be waved off by the cashier saying it was already covered.

One might suppose that the second time encountering the effects of Being in Love would not be as acute as the first, and would have awarded Sasha a little more maneuverability; but while Love frequently carries with it all the symptoms of a disease, as blindness, headaches, upset stomachs, and mental fog, it is much more difficult to build up an immunity to. Some have done it (Lysander, for instance, had); but Sasha was not so far along. However, she did retain enough sense to stop in front of the store and not cross the street till her head cleared. Luckily, before she could take any buses, she was met by the new intern to the school’s graphic design professor, a sandy haired man in a nondescript sweater with star shaped sunglasses perched on his forehead (which should give you a pretty good idea of what he was like, which was either a hundred year old grandfather with the sense of humor of a four year old or a four year old with the immunity to opinion of a hundred year old grandfather). His name was Calvin, and the art history students had recently spent a class period studying what little could be dug up about him through the rumor mill instead of Van Gogh, but as yet no one could figure out what made him tick, because he didn’t really seem to.

“Sasha, right?” he asked, stopping before her and tucking his hands into his pockets, tilting his head. “Are you alright?”

The new voice brought Sasha to. “Huh?”

“Are you alright?” Calvin repeated. He had decided early in his tenor (a few days ago) he had best be Concerned with His Students, but as concern generally mixes with the general impression that one is sitting with one’s feet kicked up in a lawn chair like oil does with water, he was only able to manage being Mildly Interested in everyone. Which was fine, because he was.

“Oh, uh. . .I think so,” Sasha said, checking to see that the plant was still securely growing out of her purse.

“Uh-huh,” Calvin nodded, then looked off down the sidewalk. “Were you with Shiro et al.? They’re going that way.”

Sasha shook her head. “No sir, I was getting a plant. I mean, they were there though.”

“I like it’s new house,” Calvin offered, without a hint of irony, because he didn’t see why a plant _shouldn’t_ be planted in a purse.

“ I’m going to paint it a new vase and give it to someone.”

“Shiro?” Calvin asked.

“What? No!” Sasha protested, her ears camouflaging themselves into her hair. Then she added mutteringly, “I don’t know if he’d like a plant.”

“Maybe his grandmother though, from what I’ve heard of her. Or Lysander?” Calvin suggested helpfully with a shrug. He hadn’t got the impression Sasha knew who she was going to give it to, so he named everyone he knew she might know, which was only the people he’d just seen walking away from her. 

Sasha tried to remember what he had been asking originally, then replied to that. “It’s for a friend of mine—at least I think. Isolde.”

“You think it’s for her or you think she’s your friend?”

Sasha began to ponder this, then gave up and just replied, “Yes.”

“Uh-huh,” Calvin said with another nod. “Well she’s lucky if she’s getting something painted by you—you have a great eye for detail when you paint! That should get you home safe.” He glanced down the sidewalk again and added, “Well, I better follow Shiro, I’m tutoring him in a bit.” With that he flipped down the green star-shaped sunglasses and shot her finger guns that would have killed most students instantly, before shuffling off.

But the encounter had done its work—she was able to make it home without further ado.

The next day was Saturday. Sasha woke up early anyways, to paint the new vase for the plant still emanating from her purse (although Zephyr her bird was quite certain it was actually in order to listen to his latest masterfully composed classical piece, which he had made himself, titled “¾ Mozart With an Underlying Motif from Indiana Jones, in Bird Key.” He was a bird of great Taste.)

After Sasha had done her best to appease and wished a good morning to a bleary-eyed neighbor grumbling about “that dratted bird” (which we musn’t blame her for, as it was really a professional dispute—the neighbor being a music student and having very strong opinions on how the Indiana Jones theme should be transposed and performed, which boiled down into something like “not by a bird on a Saturday morning or in F#”), she set upon the vase. It’s first coat was a frosted-over shade of blue (blue as snow just before dawn or the sky in spring) which was difficult to procure, that Sasha had been saving for something special. It seemed appropriate for the occasion. Then for several hours the vase was treated to a session of delicate brushwork and meticulous designs full of such detail and style that the Greeks who painted pots themselves may have approved. It resulted in a pattern looking very like an old blue china bowl if it were turned inside out and frosted over. It was, quite frankly, a lovely effect, which Sasha attributed to the paint.

So as to bring every precaution to bear, she next dug out some packing materials from her closet, and then dug herself out of it, and soon enough the plant found itself in good dirt in a lovely pot safely stowed in a box with a little hole in the top out of which it’s stems and leaves were growing.

Very well—now it just had to survive the trip (and hopefully not one of the falling kind).

To this end, Sasha was meticulously careful to pay attention to the bus route this time, despite her mind’s desire to wander. She kept the plant in the box clutched carefully between her knees and hands, wary of any rattle from the bus that might cause the vase to spontaneously fall to pieces. But none of them did, and in due time (about four hundred more rattles than it had taken Mr. Richter), Sasha stepped off the bus in between the hedgerows and returned to Isolde’s gate. This time, however, Sasha found herself at an impasse. The gate was locked, and Sasha didn’t know how else to get in. After pondering for a moment, it occurred to her that of course it was the curse at work—but she tried a half-hearted knock on the gate anyways, as a last resort. It did summon someone, but it was only a squirrel who chattered at her to go away, because she was much too close to one of the four nut stashes he could still remember the location of. So Sasha fished a rather smudgy paper from her pocket and a pen, and jotted down a note reading:

“To Isolde,

Thank you for the directions and the help home! This flower will bloom soon and I thought you might like it.

Sincerely, Sasha”

Then she rolled it up like a scroll and deposited it halfway in the hole from the plant’s stems, and placing the whole thing just inside the gate through the bars, lost an argument with the squirrel trying to get him to go away, and in the end had to go away herself.

The next afternoon, however, she received a note, thanking her for the plant and inviting her to lunch sometime this week, hand delivered by Mr. Richter (which seemed very old fashioned until Sasha remembered that Isolde had no way of knowing her phone number but did have a butler who knew where she lived). The exact day she was to settle with Mr. Richter, who would be delighted to pick her up and return her home when she was finished. This last was added by Richter Himself, and by his manner it seemed it really would be a delight to him, although she could not fathom why. (She didn’t know Richter had spent the last week polishing the car and installing a new hood ornament which he was desperate to display, and had not had the opportunity because Isolde so seldom needed the car these days—in fact had not asked for it for over a month before Sasha had come. So he was immensely pleased at the prospect, and had _perhaps_ been instrumental in convincing Isolde that lunch was the only proper way to thank Sasha back when she had asked his advice on the matter).

Sasha and Richter settled for Wednesday as the date, and when Wednesday rolled around so did Richter with his bright new hood ornament, which he surreptitiously drew Sasha’s attention to as she came out the door by saying, “Oh, Miss Sasha. I’m here you see. I thought I’d wait outside the car in case you didn’t recognize it due to the new hood ornament.” Sasha had been racking up an excellent score in his good books just for getting lost at their door in the first place, but when she actually admired the design of the ornament, Richter decided that from then on, after Isolde, he would willingly work himself to the bone for no one more than her, should she ever require it.

He made pleasant if sparse conversation with her during the drive, and, as he said nothing negative about the plant, or its effects, Sasha’s hopes were positively soaring when they arrived at the great white house behind the hedgerows. She was always looking out for at least that missing half miracle to appear, and by all accounts it appeared to be appearing now. That idea was going to Sasha’s head almost as much as Love had.

But when Richter escorted her into the airy, delicately decorated room where Isolde sat at a white wicker table with a china lunch set out, Sasha was brought swiftly back to earth, because the pot was decorating the center of the table, and it’s plant would have been if it had not been quite so chewed and dug and snapped and bent askew by a certain squirrel who had suddenly been reminded of a place he had buried more nuts. Of course! In that funny box!

He had been as disappointed as Sasha was now at his search’s conclusion (perhaps worse, because he had had bubble wrap then explode in his face ). The stem with the bud had been badly bruised, though it was still attached, which was more than some of the other stems could say. Someone had tied it carefully to a thin wooden stake—Isolde or perhaps Richter. (Whoever it was, it certainly wasn’t the squirrel).

Isolde followed Sasha’s gaze and said, “I’m afraid an animal got to it before Richter did.” Her hand floated up to the bud and touched it as gently and tenderly as a kiss, and then drifted with her gaze to trace the designs on the pot.

“Oh, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have left it on the ground,” Sasha said in dismay, trying not to groan. She wasn’t sure if that would be considered polite here. 

“Did you paint this?” Isolde’s eyes, which had been very distant of late, were now taking in the paint with a kind of hunger, the detail of the design and the rare blue of its shade filling something in her that had forgotten how desperately it needed to be fed (and also probably due to waiting on lunch, which had made her stomach something else rather desperate to be fed).

“Yes,” Sasha admitted. “I’m mostly in painting at Art School.”

“I draw. . .but I used to like to paint too. I haven’t in a while though.”

“I saw your drawing when I. . . .” Sasha searched for the right term to describe her last visit, and had to settle with “when I was here last time. It was amazing! And I’ve seen your paintings at school, of course. Why don’t you paint any more?”

Isolde blinked; but before Sasha got any answer, Richter appeared at her elbow inquiring whether she would like one kind of tea or another. Sasha was very unfamiliar with tea, as all her money went to paint or things like broken potted plants she had intended as gifts, but both Richter and Isolde were more than willing to expound to her the intricate distinctions between teas and the varying methods of making them properly. It was one of the few subjects Isolde could speak easily of, because it was one of Richter’s three passions in life, with hood ornaments and volcanic sciences (perhaps even the pre-eminent Passion, as he had met his wife, a cook, over a well-informed discussion of tea making); and Isolde, living in this house, only ever had Richter and his wife (the cook) to talk to. And because it was a matter of practical importance at the moment as well, Sasha had a very serious stake in the conversation, and the girls had completely finished their sandwiches before Sasha had enough information to come to a conclusion and assent to the other kind of tea.

What was left of the meal went delectably, and when it was time for Sasha to return to classes, she went away with a head full of more information about tea than she had known existed; a fuller stomach; and an invitation to return for another visit Saturday afternoon. It was perhaps one of the most contended car rides Sasha had ever taken, despite what her Really Rotten Luck had done to the plant. As they drew up to Sasha’s building, she thanked Richter for the ride and the good time, a gesture which caused Richter to adjust the rear view mirror slightly and remark, “I believe I must return the same to you.” He paused to shake his head before saying almost confidentially, “Miss Isolde has had to bear her heart breaking in one too many ways of late, if you know what I mean.” Then he let her out and drove away again. Sasha did not in fact know what he meant, and was left alone to ponder the portent of these words.


	3. 3. Mostly Concerning Hats (But Don’t Let That Deceive You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A-tisket, a-tasket  
> A green and yellow basket  
> I wrote a letter to my love  
> And on the way I dropped it  
> A little girlie picked it up  
> And took it to the market.”

What with Falling in Love and meeting Isolde and one thing and another, Sasha’s life had been somewhat shaken up of late; but the nice thing about Life is that no matter the shaking up it always manages to conform around things’ new configuration and settle itself into a kind of rhythm: this, that, and the other thing, rinse repeat. Things are always trying to settle into rhythms in this world—the music students had the advantage in understanding this, because they were always finding themselves surrounded by rhythms, even when they least expected it (mostly because the music theory professor was always giving pop quizzes). Eventually, of course, something will intrude that seems like it disrupts the rhythm—but then you realize you are simply listening to an elaborate classical piece or jazz (whichever, usually some masterwork of musical composition that will take the music theory class several weeks of coursework to begin to comprehend). And so the first stray note in this new melody of Sasha’s was a terribly discordant one: that is, her doorbell, which was a buzz in the key of G flat Accompanied by Gerbil Noises. (The gerbil didn’t mind Zephyr but he drew the line at the doorbell).

  
It was Shiro, toting two overstuffed grocery bags full of hats. Sasha’s eyes grew wider than the door was open.

  
“Sorry to bother you,” Shiro said politely, but not really sounding that sorry. “The landlady let me up. My grandmother’s going through her closets and wanted to know if there were any classmates who might want hats for models or anything and, well. . .” He laughed. “I thought you might.” He gestured with the bags in an attempt to show her the contents, adding as she gaped at them, “Lysander’s the only other one I know who likes hats and they’re not really his type.”

  
This had, in fact, been Shiro’s whole and only reason for thinking of her; but that he had thought of her at all was incredibly significant to Sasha. It went through her—not like lightning but like the pressure that crystallizes diamonds. It was the sudden presence of an indestructible certainty that she would swim to the far side of the Atlantic and drown in the attempt if it would help Shiro.

  
Luckily, he was only wanting to give her some hats. Somehow, she accepted them. She didn’t remember what she said afterward because she was too busy marveling at this new certainty, this odd streak of stubbornness. It sounded rather dramatic, but it wasn’t actually. It was just a Fact built into the fabric of the world—like knowing if you step off a ledge you’ll fall.

The next thing Sasha knew she was peering into what seemed like a bottomless abyss of hats. “So many. . .” She heard herself murmur.

  
“Twenty-Seven of them,” Shiro said, shrugging pleasantly. “My dad’s always sending her new ones. It’s the only thing he knows she likes. He’s done it ever since he went away to college, and keeps it up now he’s running our bank back home. It’s a small loans bank you know, and keeps him pretty busy, but he sends them more often than he calls I think. It’s like a letter I guess. . .” Here he trailed off oddly, somewhat contemplatively, but whether it was about what he had said or he was pausing to do math, I don’t know. But he finished, “So that’s 45 years worth of hats she’d had in that closet.”

  
Sasha, at this point, only found herself capable of the degree of eloquence of a goldfish, but Shiro happily filled in the rather bubbly silence with the only other topic they had ever conversed on. “Say, did you ever go to see Isolde?”  
This was lucky, because it was one of the few topics that easily grounded Sasha. She had, in fact, seen Isolde three times since, but she only said “Oh, yes, I did.”

  
Shiro nodded, eyes sparkling, and then said, “I wish I could do something too.” And although it was nearly undetectable, it was the first hint of anything resembling sadness that had perhaps ever graced Shiro’s personality.  
Sasha began to marvel over all 45 years of them, and Shiro left her to it. (He wanted to get a sandwich before he had to meet with Calvin.)

  
It is a curious thing about Love that despite inducing blindness, it comes with a strangely acute Watchfulness; that is, it is always very ready to see any signs that might be pointing in its favor. Sasha had just been given 27 of them. You may imagine how this affected her. What with having to listen amazedly to the testimony of each of the hats in turn (whom I’m afraid were so pleased to be admired they may have exaggerated their stories to her), Sasha never got the chance to contemplate any signs in the opposite direction.

  
Shiro, on the other hand, was contemplating them rather hard; so hard in fact that when Lysander appeared and stuck his elbow into his friend’s arm in the customary greeting of Young Men, Shiro was unprepared and actually yelped. It was an odd sound, because Shiro, being Shiro and at odds with the Drama Club, had never had much occasion to practice it.  
“What was that for?” asked Lysander, as if he had been the one who had been offended.

  
Shiro brushed a lock of hair out of his eye (which appeared to be its natural habitat), and said, “Oh it’s you.” But it was rather flat.

  
“Don’t worry I’m not here to mug you or anything,” Lysander said thinly, falling into step with him.

Shiro replied in an odd tone, “You could if you wanted to—I don’t think I’d notice.”

Lysander’s eyes narrowed. He was allergic to Love, and so had an uncanny ability to detect even the faintest traces of it. Shiro had only ever come close to it once though. This was in part because he never really thought about it in general, and part because it was the kind of thought that when he had it simply hummed beneath his surface for eternity, so that it had become a sort of white noise to Lysander’s life and he paid it no heed—it wasn’t obstructive. This, however, was intensified. “What’s this about?”

“Oh. . .you know. . .” Shiro said, punctuating it with a shrug. The words were uncommonly keen for how vague they should have been. But if Lysander didn’t know Shiro figured he didn’t know either.

A “hmph” was his only answer, so it seemed rather a hopeless case. Shiro shrugged again. They would not talk of It then. They went on in a silence straight from the Silver Screen. Really, what was the use of discussing the Unattainable?

Sasha, in the meantime, was headed to a place Shiro barely dreamed of going. Typically of Sasha, rather than hoarding the tokens of Love, she found great joy in sharing them, and had decided to haul all 27 hats with her to Isolde’s, because knowing Isolde was a fellow artist, she thought she might like to try them on.

  
When Mrs. Richter, the cook, entered the room to bring some fruit she had saved from Richter’s latest attempt to simulate volcanism, she was met with one uncharacteristically demure flapper and a madam from a picture book boasting to the sun of a hat three times as wide as her face.

  
“Isolde,” said a voice from somewhere inside it. “These would make great modeling hats wouldn’t they?” Hands emerged from under the hat’s brim to fish blindly in the bag for another. Its wearer had discovered she must generally keep her head very still beneath it so as to prevent Isolde losing an eye or two. A sigh shook the far end of its brim (it was a powerful sigh) as the voice added, “They were made to paint.”

  
The flapper, shadowed beneath the compressed brim of the hat perched on her gold rimmed glasses and clinging caressingly to her black curls, asked, “Why don’t you?” Her voice betrayed an old and deep hunger.

  
“No one will sit for me.” Sasha froze 1/36 of the way into a dreamy twirl, barely recollecting herself in time before she thought too seriously about who she’d like to paint (which was just as well because the hats wouldn’t have suited him at all.)

Isolde’s hands had twined together in her lap delicately. (They always did that whenever she was about to do something she was uncertain of.) She hesitated a moment, then said slowly, “What about me?”

“Oh,” Sasha froze, then turned carefully around to look at her. “You would?”

The flapper hat bobbed minutely, then got up and led Sasha to a curiously carved cabinet in a deep corner of the room. Isolde’s hand fluttered over the handle, then drew a key from around her neck, briefly hesitating before she opened it and stepped back to make way for Sasha’s elephantine hat.

  
Fifteen minutes later, when Richter came in ostensibly to see that the ladies needed nothing and perhaps privately to continue his search for his fruit, Isolde sat draped in the sunlight of the nearest window, dust dancing around her in its beams, while Sasha wielded blues and maroons at an easel before her.

  
When Sasha and her hat-lings left (in a hurry, having remembered a promise to check in on her neighbor’s dog), the painting was only half finished (that is, Isolde was missing half of herself and certain features of her expression, including her eyes, which Richter found rather unnerving when he encountered it in passing through the room later in the dark). When Sasha had gone, Isolde, her hair a little frazzled from the haste in which it had been de-hatted, was left contemplating the paint supplies left out. She stood frozen for a good while before them, entranced, captivated by some spell about them that only she could see, before she began to gather them up. She was halfway back to the cabinet with them when she stopped again, and stood in the middle of the floor. She had gotten some blue on her hands.

  
The next day, the art history period (which had settled itself as the headquarters of the rumor mill because the professor was elderly and sometimes liked a nap) was engrossed in what was surely the most important event in the art world this year—Isolde, a campus ghost story or a figment of the imagination, depending on who you asked, appeared to have returned to school. Several people had reported her presence in the Upper Levels Drawing course, and, it was rumored, in the specialty painting lab. Over the next few weeks, Art History painstakingly compiled a record of sightings that took place: one person had seen her in the hallway of the Upper Levels, walking alone; another had passed her in the commons, headed to class. Typically, only one or two ever thought to talk to her or do anything more than gape—not because they didn’t dare. They just never thought of it. When one is observing a Mysterious Event, one does not stop to talk to it. That’s exactly how it loses all its mystery; and then it is simply no good to talk about in art history. That’s what had happened to Shiro, when he had transferred in from his last school—he was simply too friendly, and so now he was too boring a subject (although fighting the Drama Club had temporarily re-ignited interest). If he began to appear more contemplative than usual, and had even been seen looking grave on one occasion recently, no one discussed it. It simply fell under Isolde’s shadow—as he did, on more than one occasion. He never discussed her in Art History with anyone else though, which everyone assumed was because his grandmother had taught him not to gossip (she had). He shared the painting lab with Isolde, and closer encounters had made her too deep a Mystery for him to discuss. If he was going to be Interesting again, he would have to do something drastic.

He didn’t care (or actually, even know) whether he was Interesting or not; but he suddenly did something drastic anyways. Rumor had it he had been called home by his father—some business about the bank his father ran a few cities over—and there was even threat that he’d have to drop art school entirely to help.  
Sasha, in the meantime, had somehow managed to miss almost the entirety of the recent Art History discussions, mostly because she had been engulfed in a new perplexity.

The long and short of it was that Sasha was living in an apartment with 27 hats crying out for recompense, and 14 different physical reminders of the reason it was probably a terrible idea to satiate them. But, like her cat who went every day to inspect the empty goldfish bowl on her dresser, Sasha also had to contend with Relentless Optimism. She knew what Shiro and Shiro’s grandmother might like—there was a store around the corner that sold exquisite Japanese teas, and she had seen Shiro one time with a cup brewing one of those teas in the student lounge one time around Christmas. Surely nothing could go wrong with the gift itself, as long as she carefully checked the expiration date?

  
Any and all her hindrances were overcome at once when she heard the news. It took her less than an hour to leave school, select the tea, and package it nicely, and she was almost giddy with the rush of it as she neared Shiro’s residence (his grandmother’s house). She had the distinct feeling she was getting away with something, and it was quite frankly rather thrilling to her.

Then Shiro emerged ahead of her, stepped into his grandmother’s car, and drove away.  
Sasha had never considered slashing anyone’s tires before, but for a brief moment she wished she had. Then she came to her senses. He wasn’t supposed to leave for another three days, according to the rumor. Probably he was just going out, and would be back in a bit.

  
What’s more, he had dropped something—a manilla envelope lay passively on the sidewalk in his footsteps. The wind tugged at its corners, trying to get it to join in some mischief, but it was as heavy and limp as Sasha.

  
Swallowing as much of her disappointment as she could manage to, she went over and picked it up. They would despair together while they waited for the door to open. Then they would leave the things with Shiro’s grandmother.

By the time the door opened however, which was less than a minute, Sasha’s optimism was rebounding. He couldn’t leave for three days yet. There was a midterm they all had that she had just remembered (and having just remembered hadn’t studied for)! It would be alright!

  
It was a maid of sorts that let Sasha in, and she found herself led before the tiniest old lady she had ever seen, who sat in a corner in a chair. Before Sasha had spied her, the room had seemed rather large and empty, as if it was in the process of being redecorated (which was probably because it was); but after, the room seemed very full. Sasha wondered how the other woman—a tall, modishly dressed auburn haired woman with brisk air of business and an expression that seemed perpetually on the edge of winking—fit in it.

  
“Hello,” Shiro’s grandmother nodded at Sasha, and Sasha suddenly found herself thinking of warm buttered toast and long holidays. “You must be one of Shiro’s friends. Please come in, although I’m afraid he just left.”

  
Sasha’s imaginary toast tasted a little burnt. But she said, “I’m Sasha, from the Art School.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, dear.” The old woman held out her small hand, and took Sasha’s. The smile with which she accompanied it restored Sasha’s toast to health. “Ah, a recipient of the hats, I see. I’m glad. You look like the sort of girl who appreciates them. It’s good to know Shiro has some friends with good taste.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what art is coming to, judging by how some of them dress.”

The other woman had busied herself practically with some paperwork in her hands, but Shiro’s manners had all come from his grandmother, who promptly questioned where hers were and introduced the woman as Valancy DuPris. “She’s helping me with the house. A lovely young woman. Utterly charming.” Valancy proved this point by smiling a smile that, if not quite worth a million, was at the very least a thousand dollar one. It made her look like the cover of a Success magazine.

“Nice to meet you. An art student? Lovely!” Valancy had an adjective for everything, including her executives, which she had enough good sense and decency to keep to herself.

“Will Shiro be back soon?” Sasha asked, drawn magnetically back to the older woman, which was saying something given the charm radiating off of Valancy.

Contrary to common thought, not all grandmothers are founts of wisdom. They are all rich in _experience_ , but some of them have just been too busy to spend all the time and thought necessary brewing Wisdom from that. On average, the amount of wisdom the average grandmother possesses is somewhere around 53%. Shiro’s grandmother, however, had found very young that she could think and act at the same time very well, and over the years had significantly driven up the sum total percent of Wisdom in all grandmothers (assuming we are not taking a corrected average). She had more wisdom than hats, and knew what to do with it, and what’s more had practiced thinking so well she had made an art of it, and it gave her something like stained glass spectacles through which to see the world—she could sort everything out to its individual colors. Consequently, whether it was Sasha’s tone of voice or the way she clutched the package a little tighter with the question or the shift between feet that occurred, Shiro’s grandmother knew immediately the whole of Sasha’s story and what she was here for. She replied gently but common sensibly, “I’m afraid his father needed him immediately dear, and he’ll be gone for some time. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Oh Shiro’s gone already?” asked a voice from the door, that didn’t actually sound too concerned about it, or anything really. It was Calvin; it couldn’t have been anyone else.

Now, despite her many virtues and great power, Shiro’s grandmother had one weakness, which she excused by saying that Naomi did it to Ruth and Boaz—that is, she had a minor bent toward matchmaking. This was not too dangerous nor disastrous a past-time, because she had so much wisdom that she was usually more or less right, and knew what would be a good pair and what would not. She had developed it living alone in a big house before Shiro had come to college, and had tried to restrain it for the boy’s sake, but she had one match that had struck her very happily with the arrival of both Valancy and Calvin into her circle at the same time. There was a reason for this she knew of course; and though they had yet to meet in her presence, she had been sure they ought to. So this circumstance occurring today did a good deal to alleviate her sadness in parting with Shiro.

“Come In Calvin,” she said smilingly, purely to adhere to the order of politeness, because Calvin already had. “Yes, I was just telling Sasha here that he had to leave unexpectedly early. Have you met Valancy?” she asked, seeing with a sense of rightness that that’s where Calvin’s eyes had gone immediately.

“A pleasure,” said Valancy, flashing that smile again—but it was not so Model a smile now. It was too dazzling for even that, and would have eluded a camera.

“The best one I’ve had all day,” Calvin adhered, taking her hand in a far more direct manner than his lackadaisical nature usually permitted. This delighted Shiro’s grandmother to no end, and took something like 20 years off her.

Valancy released his hand and turned back to her papers, and Calvin turned to Sasha then (although Shiro’s grandmother noted he remained acutely aware of Valancy’s presence) and said, “Oh, Sasha! How’s the project coming?”  
Sasha, unsure what project was being referred to (having forgotten either the project due in Calvin’s class next Monday or that Calvin was her teacher), answered, “Fine, thanks,” anyways. Fine was always an acceptable answer.

Calvin nodded, and then his eyes fell on what was in Sasha’s hands. “Did you miss Shiro too?” This was not said in order to embarrass Sasha (and in fact, Calvin was looking at the envelope, not the package), and it did not feel like an embarrassing question. Rather, Sasha suddenly had the sense that everyone in the room—Valancy, Calvin, Shiro’s grandmother—all knew more about her than she did, and it rather unnerved her. Probably they really didn’t, but they thought they might.

“That’s ok,” said Sasha suddenly , “I’ll get it to him another way.” She was halfway out the door in a slew of incoherent thoughts when one of them prompted her to leave the tea with his grandmother for her kindness, so she turned back hastily and did so then excused herself. She was halfway back to her apartment before she realized she still had the yellow envelope under her arm.

Having told his grandmother she was going to deliver things personally, Sasha decided she had best follow through on it (his grandmother had that kind of effect on people). So the next day, she went back to the store, got another package of tea, and found herself on the train watching the countryside drop behind her, hurrying her to Shiro.


	4. 4. In Which Things Really Get Underway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ “The curse has come upon me,” cried  
> The Lady of Shallot.”
> 
> —Tennyson

  
The bank where Shiro’s father worked was about a half-day’s train ride from the Art School (most things are). Shiro’s father, having had Shiro’s grandmother for a mother, was consequently one of the most upstanding citizens of his district, and being only that was ignored by most of polite society. He was not rich or charming or interested in climbing ladders, whether they were social or ordinary ones (he did not have a very good head for heights, which was why he was only upstanding—he preferred standing to climbing). Whatever had labeled Shiro a Pleasant Sort of Fellow had been handed down to him by his father. The bank he ran was a small loans bank, which meant Shiro’s father was always finding ways to give the city’s most stricken pockets a little something to line them. He was kind, but firm (as opposed to his competitors, who were a firm). He knew where to press or hold or shuffle or exchange so that the books were always balanced, but only so they could be promptly unbalanced when called upon. If he had spoken 13 more times a day, been a foot taller, deaf in one ear, and looked like a black and white James Stewart, he might have been mistaken for George Bailey; but as he was a five foot eight, rather plump middle-aged Japanese man instead (Shiro had gotten his height from his mother, who had gotten it from her mother, who had gotten it from her heels), only his competitors ever mistook him for the man, and that was because on paper the two looked like a similar amount of money out of their pockets. 

The bank was a middling affair of red brick stashed between two great elms. It was also in chaos. You must not believe this was how it was all the time, or literally any other time for that matter. Usually the elms stood solemn guard over the pristinely swept cobblestone sidewalks, saluting passers by with great and quiet dignity. Now the wind was blowing through them so that their branches stood all on end screaming in alarm.  
  
It was understandable for them to lose their cool—such a day, so many people, so many alarms, so many papers! If they weren’t rooted to the spot they wouldn’t have stood for it. (You might not know that elms are a rather dramatic lot by nature. This is because they are so long-lived, so they must continually invent interesting occurrences to keep things from getting dull.)  
  
They did not have to invent anything today though. They were being entirely genuine. Sasha, looking at the double doors that would not stop swinging, could easily see why Shiro’s father had needed his extra set of hands so badly. Sasha almost decided this was not the best time for this—but then she was under a curse so there was no such thing as a best time. Beyond that, she had already spent a lot of money on the train ticket, and before that had spent a lot of money on Art School which never taught her about Sunk Cost Fallacy—so she went in, and was hit in the face with a folder. It was Shiro’s father who had done it though—on accident, while waving his arms trying to explain something to an officer—so it was alright. (He simply wasn’t used to being this animated, so his arms were unpracticed in all the precision points of Flailing.) Besides, Shiro, at the back of the room in a flurry of papers and looking for a reason not to be, heard Sasha’s voice as she was busy saying things like “no bother” and called out, “Sasha!” before rushing happily over to her.   
  
They moved to the safe side of the room (that is, away from the waving folder) and Shiro asked, “What are you doing here?” 

Sasha also wanted to know that. Her symptoms had returned and she was feeling rather dizzy and sun-struck—or star-struck—or lightning-struck (probably it was only folder-struck though)—then she realized she was clutching Shiro’s dropped envelope. (The box of tea was safely tucked in her purse).   
  
“You dropped this when you were leaving,” she explained. “I was coming to see you and your grandmother to properly thank you for the hats, only I got there just as you were getting in your car and. . .” Sasha had turned to dig in her bag (not literally though—she had cleaned out all the dirt from the plant already) to find the tea while she explained, but Shiro’s face had gained such an odd expression that she forgot what she had been saying.   
  
“You found it,” he said, with the ghost of relief resurrected. “You won’t believe how—“ he stopped short, and Sasha’s fishing did too. He almost didn’t seem like Shiro—not her Shiro—at all. He was looking at the envelope. So Sasha held it out to him, long and yellow and heavy but not limp anymore, only taut between them with renewed purpose. Shiro’s eyes flashed soft and deep and boastful as the sea. 

Now before I go any farther there is something I must tell you.   
  
There was an old story which nobody had ever heard and few had witnessed and fewer than that (perhaps only two) had understood, which went like this:

Shiro—Shiro with his shuffling feet and wayward hair and boyish ambition (which was for everything and nothing really at all)—had arrived at Art School with brushes and pens and blank canvases. Two had been gifted by his grandmother, who told him, “Save these Shiro. Save them and paint on them only when you find something that makes your fingertips shine and your heart cry out in longing for paint.” Shiro had laughed at that, but his grandmother shook her head and said, “Someday you’ll see. Something will come to you so full of meaning that it will spill itself over in color. It will demand hours upon hours—maybe years upon years—and you will gladly give it, though your back grow bent and your wrists break in the effort, for the meaning will be everything. You are an Artist, like your mother, and you will see. It will come to you. And then you may use these canvases; but not till then. 

“Why two?” Shiro had asked, admiring their quality casually. He respected his grandmother but he did not understand her. How could he? The greatest meaning he had yet thought of was of the word “fun.” 

“Two,” his grandmother had said, “Because it gives you room to improve.”

Shiro kissed his grandmother’s cheek and then turned to something he understood (that is, his lunch.)

A year had come and gone, and Shiro had met with success in all his classes, and for the most part in his fun, and the canvases had collected dust in his closet. In fact, he nearly forgot about them. The world was pleasant and whole and temperate, and so was he. But one day, a certain professor had held up an image of the night before Shiro’s sunshiny smile, and it was delicate and brilliant and strong, and Shiro’s heart sang to it, to all it spoke of. It was Isolde’s—a girl he only ever saw but once afterward—who had disappeared, of whom whispers in dark hallways spoke: “so sad,” “ a breakdown,” “a tragedy really.” Isolde had lost, first her mother, then her health, and then her reputation, when she had broken things off with the most popular theatre student in the school, who tried to alleviate his wound with whispers and sneers and lies. She had broken down in the painting lab one day, and simply never returned. 

And when Shiro had caught the theatre student—the fool—smearing her name with the Drama Club, he had dropped his coat and launched himself at them, until Lysander had torn them apart before they could get expelled; then tottered home with a black eye and bashed knee with Lysander’s help. The few who knew what it was about were too ashamed to mention it in public, and if there was any thought of private retaliation (and there had been), Lysander had quelled it quietly the night he broke the window in the library, before it ever came to light.  
  
During all this time, still Shiro did not see Isolde. And yet he had seen her a million times around corners and three people back in grocery lines and in the insistent hum of his heart that paid her tribute so faithfully he almost didn’t know it (for Love is watchful, and is always looking for its object whether a thing is there or not). Shiro was a Prince, a Knight, a loyal servant—only he was just an art student really.

And then, unaccountably, Isolde had returned. And the hum inside him grew and grew until, just when it ought to have bloomed, it snapped—because his father called, and he’d have to drop school. That wouldn’t have mattered, but it meant he had to leave her.

Shiro’s fingertips thrummed. Then they glimmered. Then they shone, and the hum in his heart grew so loud it cried for color, and for two unremitting nights he painted on the canvas from his closet. But that was all, there was no time. He wrapped it carefully with a letter in a yellow envelope—but in the chaos of other things he had found it lost and Shiro had almost despaired, because now it would never reach Isolde, and he could never tell the Meaning of it if it didn’t, he thought.

This was the story that Sasha, in her favorite hat with a purse empty of train fare and full of tea, clutching a yellow envelope in her hands, had stepped into. She did not know it yet, but you may as well.

Shiro reached out to take it eagerly and preciously from her, but then his father called out, “Shiro! Shiro, where is that file—oh!” (He had found it, being the one in his hand). But Shiro looked back at his father, then around, blinking, and when he turned back to Sasha it was with something between a furrowed brow and a trusting plea. He reached out and took her hands, still holding the envelope. If Sasha had been walking, she would have tripped. 

“Listen, this is a really big favor, and I don’t want to be a bother, but you see, I—I didn’t have time, and then I couldn’t find it, and—I can’t leave my dad now, you know? But, this has to go to Isolde, so—would you mind, maybe next time you see her? It’s important—I mean, kind of. To me at least. I guess—“ he withdrew one hand to ruffle his own hair with anxiety. “It’s just a confession, I guess. I want her to know.” His manner had changed again. There was an entirely new tone to his words and look in his eyes, that Sasha had never seen before, not even in her own. Maybe it was resolution—of the sort that clubs couldn’t break, but a word might have. Just not her word. 

If Sasha were a heroine in a story, she might have “felt the floor reel beneath her,” or “the world stop.” But in real life things tend to go perversely on as they did before; so the people kept on talking, the folder kept waving, the door kept swinging, and Sasha kept smiling—only her ears were ringing. Hearts are often too resilient for their own good—it’s not as easy as a shatter, and the world keeps rolling on whether we want to go with it or not. Maybe later Sasha might wish her heart could shatter and be done. Now, she just wished to leave. “Of course,” her voice said. Shiro smiled, and thanked her, though she couldn’t hear his words exactly, because of the ringing, and she watched him turn to answer his father who was calling for the folder in his other hand now. He waved as she turned toward the door, with a new kind of fondness—oh but not hers. Not hers.   
She was going out the door. It was a fact of the world. If she stepped off a ledge, she would fall, because that’s how things were. If Shiro needed her to swim the Atlantic she would. . . .  
  
She would. . . .

Oh. . . .

She gritted her teeth hard, to try to stop the ringing, and then she looked down at the envelope in her hand. (She hadn’t noticed before just how heavy it was.) She was going to swim the Atlantic or drown, because that was what one did. And at the end there would be Isolde, her friend, with her smile as sad as all the women in Troy, and—

Would she be happy? Would she be giving her friend the chance for happiness she couldn’t have?

That was a foregone conclusion. Anyone loved by Shiro would surely be happy. Sasha would be giving Isolde a chance to smile in joy. And that—that was what Sasha wanted wasn’t it?

But this thought brought another one crashing down on her head. There was one problem—one disastrous, terrible, foreboding problem. She, Sasha, was cursed. If she undertook to give her this and with it her own chance at happiness, would she ruin it? Would she ruin both their happiness?

This thought made Sasha’s head stop spinning, at least. There is nothing so grounding in the face of heartbreak as something so ordinary as a curse. 

If it had not been for those two and a half times the curse had somehow stayed it’s hand, Sasha would have dropped the envelope right there and simply ran. But the missing half-miracle was always hanging just outside of view; and Sasha thought, like she had thought dozens of times before, maybe this time. . . . But there was one difference this time from the times she had been wrong. This time the gift would come with an obvious hitch. It had a built in trick, a cost, but it was a cost only for her. Only she would have to pay this time. 

Prevaricating thus, Sasha passed by three people she really ought to have noticed (because they noticed her) but we cannot blame her one whit for not doing so. One was a police inspector, talking to an officer with a steaming cup of coffee that marked him out as a newcomer. The inspector was explaining about the break-in that had occurred last night here, filling the other man in on the importance of certain documents in the bank’s possession and what they could be used to do—things like “be altered or destroyed,” “ruin lives,” and “bring the bank down”—and how they should be kept desperately secure for that reason. He was about to suggest something like maybe keeping them somewhere else, when he happened to catch sight of Sasha leaving with her envelope held very carefully between her hands, and decided he didn’t really need to. 

The second was a spectacled teller who nobody had actually seen before, but who looked so much like the other tellers that no one noticed it—and after Sasha went through the doors, he left about 5 hours too early for the end of a teller’s shift (6 or 7 hours on a day like today). The only person who saw him leave, through the back door, had seen so many people leave that way today that they promptly forgot about it. 

The third person was a boy in a gray beanie, still dressed in something resembling school attire (probably because he hadn’t slept since he had left that institution), who was leaning against the far corner of the building with his hands in his pockets, scrutinizing people. Sasha didn’t notice him till he called out, “Hey!” In fact, she quite frankly hadn’t even noticed he hadn’t been at school—which would have been bad of her, but he was so generally attached to Shiro that if Shiro was not there he simply could not be looked for. 

Sasha, who’s face was perhaps slightly more pale than usual, blinked up at him. “Oh. . .Lysander. . .” she said rather vaguely. 

Lysander had come with Shiro by the laws of nature but also because being a musician he had a slightly better head for numbers than Shiro (at least he had a solid grip on fractions). Consequently, he was in the confidence of Shiro’s father in the matter, and knew all about the bank business, perhaps even better than Shiro did himself. No officer would need to explain anything to him; mostly because Shiro’s father had already explained to him the importance of certain documents that held the proofs needed for the continued livelihood of both the bank and its patrons, and how he had loaned to someone who had been turned down by the others or some such so now something like corporate espionage was taking place through goons and proxies that were flagrantly from the competitors but could not be tacked down to them—all the kind of stuff you hear about in an Agatha Christie novel (of which Lysander had read a good many). So Lysander, who had been sent to take a break, was spending it watching people and thinking of places the documents could potentially be safe, when he saw Sasha walking out with the big yellow envelope under her arm. She looked rather besot. 

He frowned at her. “Anything the matter?” 

Sasha was using up too much will power to will up a full sentence at the moment, but she indicated the general direction of the envelope while shaking her head, which was not a very helpful answer to Lysander’s question.

“Are those the things?” He asked, following the indication.

Sasha was surprised to find that he knew about it too; and then she felt an irrational pang that this had not been entrusted solely to her; which was then overwhelmed by something that, if not relief, was very near it. She could account for none of these sensations. The only words she could get at were those of the mantra she was repeating in her head. “I’m taking it to Isolde’s” she said. 

“Is he sending them with you? Alone?” Lysander would have died for Shiro, but he also knew his friend was prone to doing things without thinking them through entirely. He knew Shiro’s thoughts on Isolde (although he was surprised by the apparent degree of mutualness, if she had consented to keep such a thing for them), and he had to admit sending them there by a visit from Isolde’s only known friend was the least suspicious way; but then Lysander had been there at the bank when they had opened the doors this morning, and Shiro (who had been tasked with an executive errand) hadn’t. 

Sasha swallowed the beginnings of a hiccup that would have been very undignified (not that Lysander would have thought so). “He couldn’t—He couldn’t get away himself. And I go to see Isolde often enough anyways.”

Lysander trusted Shiro’s family enough to believe they must have had a very good reason for sending Sasha. And if Shiro thought the documents would be safe with Isolde, and that Sasha would be fine on her own delivering them, then Lysander would do what he always did and make sure it was so.  
  
“I’ll go too,” he said. 

Sasha blinked again. Her thoughts had been knocked all askew by this point. First she thought maybe Lysander just wanted to leave the bank; then maybe he wanted to get back for the midterm; and then maybe he had something to bring to Shiro’s grandmother; or did he think she couldn’t handle it? Maybe he saw through her and didn’t think she would. Well she would! He’d see! 

Finally though she thought of the most obvious solution, which was to ask. “Why?” And then cry “I can do it on my own just fine!” It didn’t sound very convincing because she tried to say it casually with such force and fire it gave a very contradictory impression.

Lysander looked askance at her (he read a lot of rather pretentiously long books (not because they were pretentious, but because he liked them) and so he knew how to do that). He stuck his hands forcefully into his pockets and studied her a moment. But he didn’t like being condescended to, so he never did it to other people. He answered simply, “Because Isolde might not understand the full import of what’s in there. I just want to make sure she does.”

If Sasha was feeling logical at the moment, she would have thought that Lysander wanted to go as envoy to plead further on his friend’s behalf, like John in “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” If Lysander had not been so preoccupied with the whole affair at the bank, he might also have thought that’s what he was doing. But Lysander was sure he was going to help courier documents against thieves (which the thieves also thought he was doing); and Sasha was simply feeling very protective of this task—this sole task entrusted to her for both her friend’s happiness—because after all it was the only place left for her love to go, to be, to give all the things it wanted to give, even though it would be its own death. (As long as it has that, you’d be surprised how much love doesn’t mind the death). But now even that felt threatened. Sasha’s chin was lifted very high in the air prepared to snub him somehow (she didn’t actually know how to do that). “No!” She said. And then she immediately felt bad and added more meekly, “Please, I can do it.” She looked up at him, pleading; and he looked back at her, at an impasse.   
“This would be better if two went,” he said slowly. “Trust me.” (He meant the couriering essential documents, but honestly either way he was right.)

Sasha shifted from foot to foot, and looked back at the envelope in her hands and realized it was in her hands, and she was under a curse. This had to be the missing half miracle. It had to be. But if it wasn’t, it would be very selfish of her not to let Lysander come as back up. So she nodded. “You’re right,” she said, a little hoarsely. 

Lysander was fishing through his wallet. “Did you come by train?” He asked, having never seen Sasha with a car before. Not that that necessarily meant much, because he realized there was a lot of things he didn’t know about Sasha, and only three he did: she liked hats, was friends with Isolde, and was in love with Shiro. 

Sasha nodded. But Lysander was now putting his wallet away, because he had recollected far more murder mysteries that took place on trains than money for train fare. This brought him to a bit of an stalemate; but it was something like Providential (probably it was) that a certain auburn-haired woman appeared at this moment headed into the bank and consequently into Lysander and Sasha. 

“Oh, Sasha! Good to see you again!” She said, definitely not looking at the yellow envelope in Sasha’s hands. “Shiro’s grandmother sent me on some errands here for her. Seems like you have some errands too, huh?” She gestured at the envelope she had not been looking at, and Sasha got the feeling she knew more than she was saying again. But she also seemed sympathetic, and it put Sasha at relative ease, which gave her enough expression to lower her head and lift her chin at the same time, which, if you have never tried it is quite a feat to accomplish. Then surpassing the usual limits of the possible she added to it a shrug. But she only said, “I’m just going home, and maybe to see Isolde—my friend.” Valancy (because of course that’s who it was) looked questioningly between her and Lysander, as if she were mildly confused at this very ordinary event. “Lysander going too?” She asked finally. 

“I guess—I think—yes.” Sasha mumbled. 

Lysander was beginning to think they really shouldn’t be standing outside a bank with an envelope, whether there were conspiracies afoot or not. It was usually bad form. He shifted feet in the customary signal that one wanted a conversation to end. But it only brought Valancy’s attention to him. 

“Oh in that case—part of my errand was to pick up Shiro’s grandmother’s car for her. My problem is that leaves my vehicle driverless. She suggested you might drive that back for me, Lysander. I’d just have you drive her car back since you’re going that way but I—“ her blue eyes flicked to a corner nearby—“don’t think that’ll be a good idea. I need it for a few of the errands; she wanted it detailed and it has more space for the carpets than mine.” She added.

Lysander was thinking (as you might be) that it was awfully convenient to suddenly have a means of transportation dropped in their lap, and he knew four things: 1. Convenience is often the mark of design, 2. That Valancy traded in design, 3. She was trusted by Shiro’s family who held his loyalty by extension so 4. He would accept. So he did so. 

He may have regretted it for the moment when he found out Valancy’s “vehicle” was a scooter, but probably years later he got over it; and Sasha at least got a crumb of secret consolation from the prospect of playing at Roman Holiday, even if it was with the wrong person. She could at least spend the ride remembering Rome and letting herself get caught up enough in the novelty of it to get some relief from how heavy the envelope was—and maybe the wind would stop her ears ringing. She threw herself so desperately and vigorously into the prospect of pleasure that she actually managed a laugh. Lysander was not exactly thrilled to be stepping out of Hitchcock into Roman Holiday (a connection he made too only because his older sister had made him watch it so many times when she had still had power to), but he knew he was the Wrong Person and had also plenty of practice evading Tricks of Fate, so he had no fear of that. He was, however, rather concerned about having to actually drive it.   
  
“It’s a rental,” said Valancy, tossing him the keys and rummaging some files and envelopes (including a yellow one) out of the compartment on the back with all the efficiency of a cool gym teacher. “Here’s the address for the place to return it. Thanks a bunch!” She was smiling, but met Lysander’s eyes with something serious that betrayed the charm in the rest of her. “Careful huh? This way you don’t have to take the train.” 

Actually, not only did they have the chance to save time, but a lot of other trouble too by doing this, but Sasha definitely did not know this, Lysander only barely guessed it, and Valancy had actually taken the train and then taken the scooter because the station was far more full of certain people than was probably healthy for her or anyone else returning. For she was in fact there for the documents herself and seeing another plan was in place, she had been surprised, but she trusted the person she figured had made the decision unremittingly. 

Sasha found she was quite willing to do the same with Lysander, at least for now, mostly because it was easier than trying to worry. She did scream once when Lysander clipped a trash can accidentally, as they started off, but so did he. Other than that they started off without a hitch, because he stopped and Sasha said “Do you know how to drive one of these?” And he mumbled “not really,” and Sasha, feeling as high as she could to keep herself from being too low, laughed again and said, “Let me drive!” So he did.  
(She actually did not know how to drive one either, but she was probably going to have a lot more fun at it than Lysander.)   


  
  



	5. 5. In Which Sasha and Lysander Take an Unscheduled Holiday (As Certain Crooks Should Have)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And at midnight I’ll turn into a pumpkin and drive away in my glass slipper.” —Roman Holiday

As it turns out, scooter driving, especially when one has never done it before, is an excellent if temporary balm for heartache. Sasha’s eyes grew bright (even if they did keep turning to the rear view mirrors and looking so far back in them that no one else could see what she was seeing anymore), and her hair grew reckless and happy (as she was growing to be), and her breath and the wind were playing dangerous games. She was thrilled, and as long as she was going the momentum seemed to hold the world together, bright and newer than ever; but that was the problem, wasn’t it? Because the more Sasha went, the more she had to remember what she was going to do. She knew too there would be a moment soon when she had done it. But that moment was something she was not quite ready for, and the more frequently she remembered (even though she had locked the envelope out of sight in the black luggage compartment on the back of the scooter) the stronger her desire became to put it off, or forget it for a while—to linger and see things and savor these odd moments and this odder delight while she knew she still could—and consequently the slower she began to go.

Lysander’s attention was drawn to this when a car following them had to resort to honking plaintively. He turned from peering over his shoulder to try to peer over Sasha’s, looking for a gas gauge or anything to explain the problem, but Sasha’s favorite hat was dangling around her neck and blocked his view. All he could manage to catch a glimpse of were Sasha’s green eyes deep in the rear view mirrors, glancing behind them with a trepidation she was trying to conceal. 

“Is something wrong?” Lysander asked.

Sasha’s hat batted him in the chin as she shook her head to tear herself from the mirrors. She couldn’t waste this time doing that, she decided, knowing she’d never be able to go through with her job if she did. “I need a distraction,” she announced to herself, which generally makes one seem very odd. But Lysander seemed to take it in stride, and in fact nodded very seriously.

“Right,” he said, and began to search efficiently for a solution. He was a natural problem solver.

Sasha, for her part, finally noticed she needed to speed up, and so she did so with zest, jostling Lysander, who had to cling on for dear life as he was rocked back and then forward into Sasha’s hat. Luckily he turned his head in time to avoid getting the wayward brim stuck into his eyes, but that only meant his own tentatively perched beanie caught on the brim and was knocked off the back of his head and into the street. (Sasha’s hat was terribly sorry, but it couldn’t have been helped. The scooter was small, and he was crowding it.) Sasha caught sight of its whirling trip into the street in her mirror, and cried, “Oh, your hat!” as she rounded a corner (rather sharply and suddenly) into an alley. As they took the corner, Lysander caught sight of his opportunity, stuck out his foot and knocked some trash cans into the street. Sasha may have thought nothing of this since they had already accidentally knocked over several, but the local gang of raccoons, coming out to this feastful sight that evening, raised their stealthy paws that wouldn’t have to work to eat tonight and screeched a raccoon praise, and probably would have carried Lysander off as their king if they knew he had been the culprit, so it was just as well their discovery was delayed. But the little nondescript gray car which had turned down the alley after them, and the nondescript also rather gray bank teller with a fake name badge dubbing him “Stuart,” who was driving it, was not as pleased as the night life. “Stuart” had to get out and try to clear the way, but the trash cans, finding themselves thrown into this task, held with all the vigor of the barricades in Les Miserables. 

“Don’t worry!” Sasha called back to her hatless passenger, as she whipped around another corner. “We’ll get it back!”

“Never mind it,” said Lysander, although it was one of his fondest possessions. 

Sasha, who had intuited this, liking hats herself, was already turning again. She thought if she turned enough corners, she might come back out on the street, and if she went fast enough they could snatch it from the traffic. She was not thinking very Straight.

After about four more corners, two of which were in the wrong direction, they emerged on the wrong street, and Sasha hit her hand on the handlebars, because of course, the curse meant now she was lost and so was Lysander’s hat. “Um. . .” She began. “I don’t know where we are.”

It was a long, dappled street, quieter than the others, shaded by trees with yellowing leaves and canopies over shop windows. 

“Hmm,” Lysander hmphed, surveying it. He reached up to adjust his non-existent hat (an unconscious gesture which was not lost on Sasha, who had done it herself more than once.) Finally, he concluded, “I have no idea. But there’s no one behind us.” 

Sasha thought it would have been more helpful if someone had been behind them, because then they might have asked them for directions. But she didn’t point this out. Instead, being used to having to find opportunities in accidents, she brightened a bit as a perfect distraction occurred to her. “Well that’s ok, we can be tourists for a bit!”

“Tourists?” Lysander repeated, surprised. Sasha had managed to surprise him no less than four times in the accumulated 45 minutes he had known her, and that fact alone could have counted as a fifth surprise, because Lysander was not someone easily surprised. (This was probably because he spent most of his time with Shiro, who, aside from one or two cases, was not a very surprising person). 

“Yeah!” Sasha began, growing more animated with the idea. “Just drive around a bit, like other people do, you know. We’ll sight see, and eventually we’ll see enough sights to figure out where we are and get going in the right direction. No one will bother us. It’ll be fun!”

Lysander thought “bother” was a funny word for “create a potentially life threatening situation” but he had to admit he couldn’t think of a better way to confuse the bananas out of anyone still trying to track them. After all, everyone knows the best way to evade detection usually is to not look like you’re trying to evade it. “Three stops,” he said. “That’ll have to do it, and then we can get on.” 

“What kind of things should we stop to see,” Sasha asked her heart, but Lysander answered, “Dunno, whatever strikes your fancy I guess,” finding enough leeway to add a shrug. He’d lived in this city for years before going to Art School with Shiro, and didn’t really see what tourists could want with it. But that was a better answer than one from Sasha’s heart.

The first time she stopped was to examine some street artists, some of whom were painting the street on canvas and others who were painting it blue and yellow and pink and green. Great swirls of color and life swept across the cobblestones. This seemed a very natural thing to draw Sasha’s attention, but when she stopped at a park and fished the crumbles of a sandwich out of her pocket to feed some resident ducks with, lingering over each crumb she dropped, Lysander began to pick up on her reluctance to go on, and, wanting to get the delivery and danger over with himself, began to suggest, “Look, if you don’t want to do this really, I can go myself—“ but he was met by such a fierce and sudden rebuff it took him as long to recover as if he had been struck by lightning from a blue sky, while the sky went back to being very mild and bright (and blue) so quickly he wasn’t sure it had actually happened. He and the ducks blinked at her, and she dipped her head and furrowed her brows so hard they cleared themselves again, and mumbled something meant to be an apology before getting distracted by the necessity of exclaiming over a great white goose who arrived to collect his share of sandwich. Lysander didn’t make the suggestion again. 

But still she lingered and her feet moved slowly away from the ducks’ feast by half steps, and before they got back on the scooter, Sasha turned and took a long look at the scene. With something of a sigh she said, “It’d look beautiful in the snow, wouldn’t it?”

Sasha thought it was beautiful now too, but somehow it contradicted the current sympathies of her heart. Something in her was trying to remember the essential fact that even the cold and hard times had beauty—but she needed snow for that. 

Lysander didn’t like snow, mostly because he always wound up having to shovel it, but the way Sasha said it had him thinking for half a moment to agree. But then he noticed a man across the pond, looking their direction, whom he had noticed ten minutes earlier doing the same thing, and said, growing tense and grabbing her arm, “We should go.”

“Okay, I’m coming,” Sasha said, three degrees between miserable and one before irritable. But then she remembered a cracker she had put in her other pocket yesterday for Zephyr, and had not gotten to give him. “Oh! A minute!” She said, reclaiming her arm and retrieving the cracker. She tossed it to the goose as a parting gift—which unfortunately started a fight between it and three mallards who weren’t about to let their size stop them. They squabbled violently on the walkway, to the great chagrin of a certain gentleman (whom we’ll call Slinky, because he was) who had discreetly made his way around the path towards the scooter and had to make his way back considerably faster, pursued by a goose.

Sasha seemed rather gloomy as they left, pale and growing paler, and Lysander took a moment to try to puzzle it out. He thought about asking, but felt sure she would only shake her head confusingly or say “nothing.” He wondered if she was feeling ill, or was worried about the potential danger. Finally he decided he would ask after all. Sasha shook her head confusingly and said “oh—nothing.”

After a moment, he said, “We should stop there,” pointing out a small corner store. “We need directions.” (He was not one of those averse to asking for them.)

“Alright,” Sasha said, and pulled over. Lysander disappeared inside, and when he returned, it was with a small paper bag and a restored sense of direction. From the bag appeared two bottles. He handed her one, a dewy orange juice, muttering something about “maybe that’ll help,” but Sasha didn’t hear, because her face brightened considerably and she exclaimed, “Oh! I love orange juice! Thank you!”

Of course, Lysander had no way of knowing this (it was outside the range of the three things he knew about her) and he had only bought it because it looked the least detrimental to anyone’s health. He himself took a rather curiously wrought energy drink can, and tossed some of its contents back with a grimace. Sasha stared, her orange juice still held at her mouth, wondering if this was the reason that he always seemed not to have slept in the last few weeks. 

“Do you. . .like those?” She asked meekly. 

“No,” he said, taking another drink. “I prefer tea.” 

Sasha wondered if tea had a similar effect, trying to recall what Richter and Isolde had told her about it, but that seemed decades ago. “That. . .doesn’t look very healthy,” she proffered. 

“Looks a lot healthier when you consider how late we might have to drive.”

“Is it going to take a long time to get back?” Sasha hated to leave on the note of the goose, but she mentally sacrificed her third sight seeing stop anyways. 

Lysander shrugged, because he didn’t actually know, never having driven a scooter before. 

Sasha put away her orange juice with her expectations of any more fun, but Lysander said, “Let’s find the last stop and then get out of here.” Mostly this was because Lysander liked to stick to plans, as long as he thought they were good ones; but maybe it was also a little bit because he half noticed Sasha’s wavering eyes as she steeled herself. He didn’t have much time to do that, because Sasha immediately brightened again, vibrant with the joy of something thought lost and unexpectedly returned. The scooter rushed them and a flock of pigeons off, who warbled at her to watch where she was going, and shook their ruffled tails at her. Sasha laughed and called back, “Sorry!” 

The third place was difficult for Sasha to decide. She passed a bridge with beautiful lines over the water—she passed a barge drifting lazily downstream as it muttered placidly in its sleep—she passed an actual art museum (mostly because she had no money)—but at last she knew it.

It was a great fountain in the middle of a plaza in the middle of a street. Two or three other groups of people milled about it, eating late lunches or swinging their legs as they sat on the brim of the raised pool into which the fountain fell. Sasha watched the fountain with rapt attention—the elegant statue and the colors trembling with delight in the water as it arched down to ring the pool in ripples of blue and gold and iridescent bubbles, while a breeze whispered the mist from it into the air and onto Sasha’s cheeks and eyelashes to sparkle there like smiles and tears. 

“Oh,” Sasha breathed back to the fountain, and her eyes turned to laugh with the pennies in the pool below it. “Oh,” She said again, remembering that she had no change.

She turned to Lysander. “Make a wish!” She said, then leaned over the pool to count the pennies it held in safekeeping.   
Lysander already had two pennies in his hand, and gave one to her (for he had read a lot of old books, so he knew all about wishing fountains, although no one would have known that to look at him, and he often forgot that himself.) 

But before they could deposit them, Sasha froze, eyes on someone across the fountain. It was an old bedraggled man, who would have looked like he had been sitting in that very place for twenty years if not for the sign he was holding that said, “Traveling. Anything helps.” 

Now Sasha’s wheels were turning. Her generous impulse was welling up in her—even more than usual because he looked sad and old and like either he or the whole world had forsaken the other, despite his bright eyes, and maybe Sasha felt a pang of kinship with him; and yet she was also seeing a goose fight and a razed plant and a bad painting and innumerable other disasters shaking their heads at her from beside him. But there was a wishing fountain and liquid sunlight dancing on her cheeks and wasn’t this her third stop which she hadn’t expected to get at all? And yet—and yet! Sasha swayed back and forth, deliberating, and Lysander stood and watched her caught in her indecision.

“Trouble?” he murmured.

“Oh—no,” Sasha said, not wanting to explain certain things about herself, like being cursed. But still she hesitated. Lysander noticed the old man at this point, and decided if he was trouble, it was best to meet it head on, and if he wasn’t, then the change he still had from the store wouldn’t hurt, if it wouldn’t help much. He strode over and emptied his pocket into the man’s hands. The old man gave him a broad and less-than-toothy smile in return, and Lysander, who was not usually caught in his kindnesses and so did not know how to respond, merely nodded uncomfortably and turned to see if Sasha would follow. 

Sasha had remembered she had a two-way train ticket in her pocket, which had only been spent one way, and that certainly seemed relevant for a Traveler. She stood, patting her pocket, when the old man followed Lysander’s gaze, and his eyes met Sasha’s. This had to be the half miracle. With a fervently humble prayer and eyes cast to heaven, Sasha tossed her penny into the fountain and hurried over to the old man. With a smile she reached into her pocket and pulled out the ticket, and was holding it out to him asking, “I don’t know if this would help?” when a car rushed by going too fast, kicking up a policing wind in its wake, which confiscated Sasha’s ticket and sent it into the street. 

“The wind! The ticket!” Sasha cried. “No!” And pursued by the ghosts of the goose and the critical professor and the squirrel who had excavated the plant, Sasha dashed out into the street after it.

“Hey!” Lysander yelped, trying to grab her as she leapt off the curb—of all dangers he had not anticipated Sasha being one—but he missed and Sasha went darting through the traffic. 

The old man watched with wide eyes as cars screeched to a sudden halt before Sasha, who jumped to the side with a greater degree of elegance than one would think a distraught art student chasing a wind through a busy street would possess—and just when the cars began to creep forward, thinking all was safe, they were interrupted by a pursuing musician, yelling very unmusically at her to stop, while the drivers yelled at him to go on and get out of the way. This was difficult, because he tripped over a parking meter he hadn’t seen, and fell in more ways than one behind Sasha. But he recovered quickly and sprinted across the street after her. How a musician ever learned to run that fast I’ve no idea (although the energy drink may have had something to do with it). 

On the other side of the street, Sasha finally stopped, looking desperately about, but she had lost the ticket; then Lysander caught her, and a policeman with a whistle caught the two of them for something like “obstructing traffic.” 

Sasha groaned, because the old man wasn’t even sitting across the way on the fountain anymore.


End file.
